


Lady Antebellum

by Arya_Greenleaf



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-05 23:30:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5394317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Greenleaf/pseuds/Arya_Greenleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agent Carter pays Private Rogers a brief visit on his last night at Camp Leigh to reassure him of some very important things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lady Antebellum

**Author's Note:**

> **NOTE:** This fic is _not_ rated Mature for sexual content.

Agent Carter cleared her throat somewhere over Steve’s shoulder. Erskine finished the second finger of schnapps that he’d poured himself as they continued to talk. Steve had been watching him warily, wondering if a hungover scientist would still be a mindful one come morning when Steve’s own life might depend on it.

“Ah, Margaret.”

It was the first time Steve had ever heard someone address Agent Carter on such familiar terms. It was bewildering. He turned the liquor-softened quality of Carter’s given name in his head. _Margaret._

It fit her. Elegant and defined. Syllables with hard edges and soft middles, a heartbeat in staccato.

“Abraham.” Her tone was clipped but cheerful. Official business. She was dressed much more casually than Steve had ever seen her before—a pair of pilled Army drab slacks and one of the off-green thermals they’d all been issued. Her dog tags clinked softly against her chest as she moved.

Was she coming to tell them that plans had changed? What was urgent enough to pull her away from her quarters as she clearly had been—her hair covered with a wisp of olive colored silk.

Was she coming to take away Steve’s chance at doing something worthwhile in this damned war?

Exactly how many curls were pinned precisely under that kerchief? He very well knew the time and care that her day-to-day ‘do required.

Bucky’s kid sister—he should really stop calling her that, she wasn’t exactly a kid anymore—boasted no less than twenty perfectly divided and coiled sections of hair, more if she was going for something more extravagant. Rebecca’s hair was the envy of all of the girls in her peer group—lustrous and chestnut and smooth as silk. Bucky would help her set the curls before bed if he was home, pins clutched between his teeth while his fingers twirled and wrapped. He could see them clearly in his head, the banter back and forth as Rebecca’s night was winding down and Bucky and Steve’s night was starting up in those first days of the sweltering Brooklyn summer before Bucky got his orders.

He refused to slink back there—back to Brooklyn to collect metal in his wagon. He’d do anything, _anything_. He’d be Carter’s personal secretary if it meant he was doing something that would make a difference—and somehow Steve knew intuitively that even Agent Carter’s personal secretary would probably be handling some serious business.

“Who has their underwear stuck up their—“

“ _Abraham_.”

Steve tried to gather his thoughts, make his mind work in a more logical sequence. If Carter was here to burst his bubble then he needed all of his faculties about him.

Erskine grinned and put his glass down. “Perhaps I will leave this with you after all.” His expression turned serious and he leaned forward. “Remember what I said, Rogers.”

Steve nodded, “Yes, sir.”

“Agent Carter.” Erskine inclined his head as he rose from his seat on the bed beside Steve’s and patted her affectionately on the shoulder before he left.

Carter resumed Erskine’s seat, the springs squeaking slightly as she sat. “Private Rogers.”

Steve hazarded a weak smile and gestured around himself, “Welcome to my humble abode.” Her eyelashes fluttered in an amused way and she snorted quietly. “Have… have I done something wrong? Am I out of the project?”

“Why would you think that?”

“You comin’ to see me this way, ma’am, it seems like it might be something important if it couldn’t wait until morning.”

She looked at the bottle of liquor and the pair of shot glasses on the table between the beds. “I hope you haven’t had any of this.” Steve shook his head. “Good. I don’t think a hangover would mix well with the stress you’ll be under tomorrow.”

Steve felt like he was beyond what could be described as _under stress_. He felt like his skin was going to split apart and everything inside would just spill out in one big mess of fear and confusion and _want_.

Carter pursed her lips and studied his face. He was trying to keep his features in careful composure, not wanting to give his nerves away. She drew in a deep breath and crossed one leg over the other. A flash of pink flooded her cheeks and receded just as quickly as it appeared. She switched her legs and let the breath out slowly.

“Rogers, I was looking through your file.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I need to know something.” She bit her bottom lip and released it. The delicate skin turned rosy red for a moment and faded back to pale pink. “You have no next of kin.”

Steve squared his jaw and pointed his chin in the most defiant manner he could muster. “No, ma’am. My father died—“

“Mustard gas. Your mother passed several years ago.”

“Tuberculosis.”

“Yes.”

“I—I’m not sure what this has to do with anything.”

“Are you quite certain that you’ve no one else that we might notify? If something… if you…”

“If I die tomorrow?” Carter nodded, resolute, somber.

Steve thought of Rebecca again. The last time they’d spoken she’d been on her way to the _Griffith Hotel_. She’d been determined to have a respectable lady’s address to match her respectable prospects as a school teacher and her sheer determination to be more than a pretty girl from a poor neighborhood. He thought of Rebecca being called down to the reception desk and the smile dropping off of her lovely face. He thought of Mr. and Mrs. Barnes getting an official, sterile looking telegram in the mail and the way their world would stop—they’d think something had happened to Bucky, barely gone a few weeks and already a casualty.

He wouldn’t do that to them.

He wasn’t their responsibility.

“No, ma’am.”

“You’re one-hundred-percent-positive. There’s no close family friend? No fiancé?”

“I’m absolutely sure.” He nearly laughed.

“Private Rogers. _Steve_. There is actually something very important that I need to know you understand.” He nodded, waiting for her to continue. A thrill ran up his spine, bouncing over the notches of his crooked vertebrae and settling in a fizzle at the base of his skull at the sound of his name. “You’re in _no_ way obligated to go through with this.”

“Excuse me?”

“No one is going to make you follow through with the procedure if you change your mind. Right up until they’re ready to administer the serum. Not Erskine, not Phillips, none of them. It is still _your_ life, you still make the decisions.” She reached up almost absent mindedly and pushed the end of a pin that had begun to dislodge and peek out from under her kerchief back in. “No one will think any less of you for backing out. This is a serious sacrifice you’re making, whether the procedure is successful or not.” Steve guffawed. “No one that matters, at least.”

He looked at her seriously. “Would you think less of me?”

The way she regarded him made Steve feel completely insubstantial and totally solid all at once. His stomach flipped. He considered the bottle of schnapps out of the corner of his eye.

“I would think more of you, that you would have the courage to say _no_ when other men might feign conviction for the sake of seeming… manly.”

Steve’s cheeks and ears turned hot.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Agent Carter rose from her seat. She took a step forward and then hesitated. She reached across the gap and picked up the bottle and glasses. “I think I’ll put these away, hmm? No ideas.” Steve smiled and nodded. He froze as Carter leaned down, her breath warm and humid against his skin. She spoke in a low, husky whisper. “It’s _Peggy_ , preferably. Privately.”

“Peggy.” It rushed out in a whoosh of breath. Steve turned his face slightly, she was still hovering close.

Peggy closed the space between them, capturing Steve’s lips in the briefest of kisses. His face followed hers as she pulled away.

“I’ll be right there tomorrow. Any reason at all, I’ll shut it down.” Steve nodded and listened to the muted sound of her boots against the floor and the door opening and closing on a squeaky hinge.

The next day, Steve settled himself into the vinyl of the odd operating table Erskine directed him to. He took slow breaths, deep as he could, trying to calm his nerves and make his heart stop throbbing like it was going to burst. He caught Agent Carter’s eye and she raised a brow. He nodded minutely and she beamed at him as she ascended the stairs to the observation booth.

He was damn well going to come out of this thing alive. He could do this.

And if it came to it, Peggy was there to shut it down.


End file.
